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A TEMPORARY POWER plant in North Dublin is set to take 15 months to build and will be in operation for up to five years, according to a report published by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications.
The plant itself will be located in North Wall in Dublin and will add an additional 210 megawatts of power to the Irish electricity grid through six gas-powered generators.
The plant, which went through consultation with An Bord Pleanála (ABP) in recent months, is set to be given the go ahead by Minister Eamon Ryan through a Ministerial Order.
A second temporary plant has been proposed in Huntstown, Co Dublin, but this has not yet received approval by ABP.
The Journal originally reported on the proposed power plants in April, with EirGrid initially seeking to have the two emergency plants up and running by winter.
The plans for the two plants come after EirGrid raised concerns about electricity generation last year, due to rising demand for electricity and the closure of older, fossil-fuel powered plants, like Moneypoint in Co Clare.
A major report was compiled by EirGrid, which showed that Ireland could potentially face electricity shortages over the next several winters due to the shutdowns of older plants.
It also comes days after the Government reached an agreement on sectoral emissions cuts, with the electricity sector expected to cut their carbon emissions by 75% by 2030.
According to Dr Muireann Lynch, Senior Research Officer with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), Ireland’s electricity supply is currently “as tight as we’ve been in a long time”.
Lynch said that the main reason for tighter electricity supplies was a change in the electricity market, leading to some companies taking electricity generation contracts but not carrying them out.
This combined with an increased demand for electricity, but Lynch says the increase wasn’t unexpected.
“We’ve had increased demand, particularly from data centres, but it hasn’t increased anymore than we thought it would increase,” Lynch said.
“That would suggest that it was actually either bad planning or a bad market decline that resulted in the generators who were contracted to show up not actually showing up.”
When asked whether there would be a possibility of blackouts this winter, Lynch said it was a possibility – but it would be down to the amount of wind energy generated.
“If it were the case where you have a high demand period coinciding with little or no wind, in that situation we could be looking at blackouts. Now they always are a last resort, but they can happen.”
Lynch said that the electricity grid has to be operated to a certain standard, with Ireland being permitted to not meet all the demand for electricity for a maximum of eight hours a year and say that the electricity grid is reliable.
However, Lynch added that if demand is not met, even for less than the eight hours, it would be a “cold comfort” to say the grid is still reliable.
Dublin Port plant
The North Wall plant will be located to the east of Dublin City Centre and will be within the boundaries of Dublin Port, with the nearest residential property located 760m south of the proposed plant, according to an assessment screening and natural impact statement.
This statement was released by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications in late June.
The construction of the plant will take place across three separate stages, with pre-construction works and demolition each taking two months. The construction of the plant will take 11 months.
The plant itself will only run when electricity demand is high and when generation from other sources, like wind, is low.
It’s expected to run for up to 500 hours a year and only four hours a day when it is needed.
A spokesperson for the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications said that the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) has a programme of work underway to tackle the electricity supply issues.
“The actions include procurement of new, enduring capacity through a number of forthcoming capacity auctions, extending the availability of existing generation capacity, additional use of grid-scale batteries and improved demand side measures,” the spokesperson said.
This includes having EirGrid source and deliver temporary electricity generation capacity for this winter and next winter.
“This temporary generation capacity will be contracted for a limited period. It will be available when needed and will be in addition to existing generation capacity in the electricity market.
“The temporary capacity is being secured to mitigate any potential risks of a shortfall in electricity supply. Concerns over such risks had arisen largely due to non-delivery of previously contracted capacity, increasing electricity demand and the increasing unreliability of some existing plants,” the spokesperson added.
EirGrid previously said that balancing supply and demand for electricity is becoming “increasingly challenging”, including growth in electricity demand.
“These factors have the potential to place increased pressure on the supply demand balance, particularly when demand for electricity is high and renewable generation is low,” a spokesperson for EirGrid said.
According to EirGrid, it is working on multiple actions to help address the shift in supply and demand for the medium and long-term.
“In the short term we are closely monitoring the situation and working with conventional generators to ensure that plant performance and availability is maximised as well as working to optimise our operation of the grid.
“EirGrid is also engaging regularly with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU), and with the Department of Climate, Environment and Communications on this issue.”
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That’s right…. Tell all the farmers to get rid of cattle and sheep because of emissions but let’s build a couple of gas powered electricity stations that will emit far more carbon emissions into the atmosphere. And don’t be fooled by the “5 year operation”. It’ll be like the USC tax…… That one was also temporary wasn’t it?
@James Doherty: Agricultural emissions account for 37.5% of Irelands total. This is not farmers’ fault, but it does need to be addressed.
@Nicholas, 37.5% is B S… I’d does not take into the carbon offset from the grass growing in the fields, the hedgerows.. etc.
@Daniel Morrissey: The hedgerows are cut to stumps LOL
@Nicholas McMurry: Truth is Ireland carbon emission numbers are irrelevant because India,China and most of Africa are still industrailising on a massive scale. Irelamd and all of the EU could go net zero emissions tomorrow and climate change will still get worse.
So we can sit on our moral high fence if we hit net zero and still watch the world boil.
Irish cows farting aint the problem.
Maybe Eirgrid would be better off developing the interconnectors that would allow windfalls to send their surplus generation outside of the local area. Madness that turbines aren’t turning because they are at max supply and are therefore turned off to prevent unnecessary wear and tear.
@Niall Whyte: *windfarms
@Niall Whyte:
Basic rule of renewables generation. No one wants your surplus when you don’t and that applies to solar as well. Next rule. Power cost is something measured at the consumer’s meter, not at the generator terminals.
How much longer do we need to wait for the Euro to drop. 5% native, cyclical biomass CHP and 35% new modular nuclear. There is technically no other way out of this and anyone who says otherwise is spouting vested interest rubbish.
@Niall Whyte: Surplus? installed wind generation capacity 4,200Mw, current system demand 4,213Mw, current wind generation 820Mw, what surplus?
@Nicholas Grubb: I know you’re obsessed with renewables not working and nuclear being the only solution but that is simply not true. Look at South Australia – went from the highest energy prices in Australia to the lowest through investment in renewables. There are also a huge amount of new technologies being used in energy storage so in order to say that there is no other technical solution you must have studied all these technologies and discovered that they don’t work.
@Nicholas McMurry: Yes of course they will work to a degree. Hydrogen the big hope, according to recent DW analysis should be able to do 20% of the job by 2050. Can we wait that long.?
By the way, I’m one of the eighties hydro gang and indeed am in high head with storage up in Scotland. Back those days, if you wanted to sell to someone else the golden rule, you guarantee them a 24/7/365 supply, not leave up that little issue to being the responsibility of “Someone Else Inc.”. Every wind farm should own backup.
@Nicholas McMurry: I would not be holding Australia up as an example,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBo7KMbgf6E
it’s a bit long but quite entertaining and well worth watching
@Niall Whyte: interconnectors are not the problem. There are two in the island (1 NI 1 ROI both to UK) and a further two are at development stage, though some years away to Wales and France).
Permission to generate is restricted by the Gate system. This relates to the market rules, set by CER the electricity regulator, not Eirgrid. These rules determine what generators are allowed to send electricity to market. That in turn gives competitors certainty on securing finance for such projects. This is a totally artificial system designed to give so called equity of treatment to competing generators. Overturning that would require that some generators be compensated for loss of generation- all of which would be paid for by guess Who? Micro nuclear or hydrogen anyone?
USC was meant to be temporary
Nuclear is the only thing that will work unless everyone is intent on erasing the human race from the planet. Otherwise, enjoy it while you can.
@François Pignon: But needs to be installed on a mega scale and the only way that could be done is by putting the task into the very capable hands of the World’s Military Industrial Complex, instead of giving them 2000 billion a year to make weapons. This after all is a Warming World War and we have very few years in which to win it.
@François Pignon: A nuclear disaster is a local killer, up to 100 deaths at first with 1000′s due to cancers in the years after (thats if a disaster happens and we already had 3 in the last 40 years or so), and then the cost of dealing with the waste. No it’s much better to kill the planet slowly including millions of people due to air pollution. That’s the popular choice. One nucular power station in Germany produces 5 times the power this temporary station is ment to produce, and the Germans have 3 left that they plan to turn off in December, but that’s the popular choice. Humility is truly a pest on this planet
@Gary: humanity
@Gary: International study 35 years on from Chernobyl last year, on effect on human genome. Zero. Like last year also, tenth anniversary of what RTE reported as nuclear meltdown in Japan that killed eight thousand people. Did they mean to say anniversary of 9.5 Richter earthquake off the coast of Japan, whose subsequent tsunami killed eight thousand people, including one operator at the Fukishuma nuclear plant, which shouldn’t have been built on a fault zone in the first place.
@Nicholas Grubb: how do you safely and economically dispose of waste from nuclear power plants?
@workhorseHealth&Dad: what waste are you talking about. If taking about high level waste it can be reprocessed into new fuel or burned in breeder reactors. Nuclear waste is a miniscule issue and only a problem in the minds of the ignorant.
Eamon Ryan’s answer to green energy
This is a actually good… as long as we can build biomethane plants to inject the renewable gas into the grid to offset this natural gas… but did they think about this??
@David Hynes: Biogas is not the magic wand. The digestate waste left after the process is toxic and full of ammonia. Massive problems with the spreading of it and seepage into water courses.
@Ciarán FitzGerald: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969714001983
Gosh that’s gas….
Every wind farm should have solar panels. Almost everything is there to connect to the grid
Is the shell to sea gas still available?
There isnt don’t rhyme not to mind rhythm to Emergency and An Bord Pleanala, as bedfellows.
They just don’t sit well together. Wake up and smell the roses fxs.
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